Stop the sticks, there’s a new persuasion tactic that’s guarenteed to work 60% of the time on your unsuspecting customers, marks, and yokels. Named after its creator, Mr. Sullivan, the “Sullivan Nod” goes like this.

You offer a customer a list of options and provide a subtle smile and head nod with one of those options. This “Sullivan Nod” will increase the likelihood that the customer will select the option covered with this nonverbal gesture. Here’s how Mr. Sullivan himself puts it:

This great piece of body language can increase incremental sales as much as 60%. Salespeople should smile and slowly nod their head up and down as they suggest an item to a customer. You’ll be blown away by the fact that over 60% of the time the customer nods right back with you and takes your suggestion! For instance:

Customer: I’d like a vodka/tonic please.
Server: Would you like to try Stolichnaya (nod) or Absolut (nod) in that, sir?
Customer: (mesmerized) Sure. Put em both in there!

The Sullivan Nod even works over the phone for room service orders. It is a powerful tool. I always teach it in my seminars (and it’s featured in our popular MYOB Live! DVD for servers) and I’ve got a file folder of no fewer than 200 hundred letters from salespeople and their managers testifying to its effectiveness.

Wow. And it’s not just with Mr. Sullivan. There’s also a Wikipedia entry that describes this persuasion breakthrough. And it’s confirmed at thatsfit.com, correntewire.com, and boingboing.net, among others (search on “Sullivan’s nod” for more links at your pleasure).

However, not everyone is falling for this one. Some commentors on these postings are deeply suspicious and see only a persuasion benefit for Mr. Sullivan . . . especially regarding that claim of effectiveness over the phone - how do you smile and nod, telepathically?

So, Steve, persuasion maven, dispenser of wisdom, truth, and the scientific method, what’s your take on the Sullivan Nod.

To quote the immortal Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein, “IT . . . COULD . . . WORK!”

Really.

I have not read a good scientific study that tested the Sullivan Nod exactly as described here, but I’ve read enough good research on the variables in play here to know that this is not fool’s gold. For example, I believe that if you ran an experiment that compared the same waiter doing either the Sullivan Nod or a No Nod script identical in all other respects that customers would be more likely to pick the targeted option following the Sullivan Nod. I’d expect the effect size to be at least 10% and if you added another variable like distraction or cognitive load, the effect might increase 30%. To be even more explicit, if the No Nod group chose the target option 20% of the time, I’d predict the basic Sullivan Nod effect to be 30% (20% + 10% = 30%, right?). And, if we had that distraction or load variable, the Sullivan Nod would increase to 50% (20% + 30% = 50%).

The Sullivan Nod operates as an information cue or indicator or suggestion that would affect customers who don’t have or can’t form a strong preference. The smile and nod simply direct the customer to a path of least resistance and if you read the consumer research literature you know that most of the time customers in service situations when faced with a lot of choices often don’t care and can be easily directed with something as simple as a smile.

The Sullivan Nod also contains affective properties. Smiles and nods typically generate favorable affect in both the sender and the receiver, and again, under circumstances where the customer doesn’t have a strong preference, these mild affect moves can direct action.

It’s also possible that there are differences depending upon the gender of the senders and the receivers and the context of the service. Yada-yada, I could go on forever like this, so I’ll stop in the name of all that is good and merciful.

I’ll bet my money on the Sullivan Nod as a simple main effect. If you want to direct people to a particular item in a list of relatively equal options, consistent use of the Sullivan Nod should produce observable benefits to you. You just have to do it ALL THE TIME.

But, you can’t smile and nod over the phone, so Mr. Sullivan is cleverly working us on that one, encouraging us to get him to explain . . . which I’m sure he’ll be happy to do. Maybe won’t even charge a fee. Maybe.

Have to be vocalics.

Through the primary season Barack Obama is doing a nice impression of Ronald Reagan. Nobody could lay a glove on Reagan and Obama is proving as elusive. In the 1980s, critics called Reagan the Teflon Candidate, then Teflon President because criticisms never seemed to stick to him. Now, Mr. Obama appears to have studied at the foot of the great man and learned many things. The first lesson is this: If they can’t hit you, they can’t beat you.

So, why is Mr. Obama so elusive a target? And, more importantly, how do you hit him?

One answer to both questions emerges from an old line of communication theory related to leadership. Back in the 1950s, a couple of management professors, Tannenbaum and Schmidt, developed a model that had four types of LeaderComm: tell, sell, consult, and join. The four types refer to philosophy and style leaders may develop. The labels mean pretty much what a dead level decoding takes from it. Tell communication is direct, simple, power-based. Sell communication persuades from power as the leader motivates supports for a decision that is going to be made anyway. Consult communication holds the ultimate choice for the leader, but actively seeks input and support from followers. Finally, the Join occurs when the leader follows the followers in their choice and uses the leader positional resources to implement that choice. Clearly the four types vary on two dimensions: Dominance and Relationship.

You don’t have to watch the three leading contenders, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. McCain, more than a few minutes to discern their natural LeaderComm styles. Both Clinton and McCain operate most frequently as Tells. Sure, they will use Sells or Consults, but when you close your eyes and think of them, you see and hear the Tell. By contrast, Mr. Obama is the grooving embodiment of the Consult style.

Just think about that contrast in styles for a minute.

Tell leaders come across as authoritarian, disciplined, power-oriented, dominating, strong, hierarchical. Consult leaders, by contrast, come across as relational, provisional, open, trusting, collaborative.

What happens, then, when Tells criticize Consults? That’s easy: Tells look mean, authoritarian, and traditional while Consults look assaulted, attacked, and aggrieved.

The reason this occurs is not because Tell attacks are wrong or even badly stated. It occurs because while the Tell attack aims at the Consult’s arguments, the Tell attack also unintentionally offends the Consult’s relational ties. Because the Consult style seeks and validates input from followers, Tells can never just attack the Consult’s competence or character without also attacking the Consult’s audience.

Further realize that the blunt, simple, and brief communication style of Tells further works against effective attacks against Consults. Tells will focus on the fundamental issues from a power perspective – what’s the controlling legislation, what are the key facts on the ground, who’s in charge, who are the good guys and the bad guys, what’s the history – and ignore the relational element entirely because from a Tell’s perspective, relationships aren’t as important as the dumb policy statement made by the Consult.

Therefore: When Tells attack Consults they must show relational awareness first.

Let me demonstrate how to do this through the words of another writer. Stephen Hayes has already sharply observed a key Obama consult tactic. When I taught this tactic many, many years ago I called it ERA as both an easy mnemonic and a silly pun on a hot political issue of the day, the late and largely forgotten Equal Rights Amendment (and that tells you way too much about how old I am.) The ERA communication tactic is a three step dance. First, you offer an Empathy statement. Second, you pivot with a Rationale statement. Third, you get to the real point, your Action statement. Mr. Hayes has already provided a perfect illustration of this with Obama, so I’ll quote at length.

His rhetorical gimmick is simple. When he addresses a contentious issue, Mr. Obama almost always begins his answer with a respectful nod in the direction of the view he is rejecting — a line or two that suggests he understands or perhaps even sympathizes with the concerns of a conservative.

At Cornell College on Dec. 5, for example, a student asked Mr. Obama how his administration would view the Second Amendment. He replied: “There’s a Supreme Court case that’s going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I’ve got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably — it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That’s what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that’s a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families.” [This is the empathy statement, right?]

Then came the pivot:

“Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don’t think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out — what are you doing?” [A nice statement of Rationale]

In conclusion: “There is a tradition of gun ownership in this country that can be respected that is not mutually exclusive with making sure that we are shutting down gun traffic that is killing kids on our streets. The argument I have with the NRA is not whether people have the right to bear arms. The problem is they believe any constraint or regulation whatsoever is something that they have to beat back. And I don’t think that’s how most lawful firearms owners think.” [The payoff – the desired Action]

Now, I can’t believe that anyone associated with the Obama campaign, indeed anyone in politics, has heard of my ERA idea. But, you don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist or have a doctorate in Communication to see how this ERA communication tactic is the marker of Consult LeaderComm. That first Empathy statement by design includes the “other guy” in a thoughtful, emotional way. “I feel your pain” is another variation on it. But what has this got to do with attacking Obama?

Tell leaders should employ ERA as a template for their attacks on Obama. They should use that Empathy statement to directly address Obama’s supporters in both a thoughtful and emotional way. Only after making those Empathy statements can the Tell leader (either Clinton or McCain) move to their Rationale and Action statements. Please realize that if Tell attacks do not address the relationship issues, attacks on Consult leaders will either backfire or be seriously weakened.

Further understand that ERA tactics in attacks mean that the attacks will require more time to deliver. Normally attacks are short and sweet, direct and jugular. You just look for the opening and jam it in. ERA style attacks, by contrast, will require considerably more thoughtfulness, planning, and setup.

Please realize that I am not saying that Tell leaders should never directly attack Consult leaders. Whether the attacks are direct statements against the competence or character of the opponent or longer ERA approaches should depend upon the issue at hand. When it appears that the Consult position does not have a strong relational element to it, then direct attacks should function as they always do. By contrast, when the Consult position does include that relational decision, Tell leaders must isolate the Consult leader from his followers before making the attack.

Let’s keep in mind that I’m the guy who, last year, named Rudy Giuliani as the likely Republican nominee and we’ve seen how that prediction fared.

Today, I want to weigh in on Senator Barack Obama’s continuing success with a focus on his rhetorical skills. Currently, he’s getting flack for plagiarizing another politician. Mr. Obama’s been trying to address attacks on his thin resume - “he’s all talk, no action” - by quoting lines such as “I have a dream” and “We hold these truths to be self evident . . .” then asking if these words don’t have an action all their own, thus turning talk into concrete behavior. Some folks attack that as plagiarism.

I’m not particularly concerned here about the plagiarism charge because in this instance it seems to be weak, tangential, and peripheral. He’s saying things that other politicians have said because if you’re running for office, you have to address a set of common topics (war, crime, health, the economy, etc.) and common topics are likely to produce common rhetorics. Thematically almost all politicians sound like someone from the past. And, that’s not plagiarism in my book.

My puzzlement here is why so many people in the first place appear to think that Mr. Obama is unusually gifted as a persuasive speaker. I’ve been studying persuasion for virtually my entire adult life and in a wide variety of situations and applications from being a classroom public speaking instructor to consulting with government and business units on their “persuasion” efforts and even my own daily attempts at it. Mr. Obama is a better than average rhetorician, but he’s not even close to “excellent” or “great.”

I’ve read or heard nothing from him that approaches the writing gifts from the speeches of truly great politicial rhetoricians like Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, Franklin Roosvelt, or Winston Churchill. Stated another way, Obama hasn’t yet turned a phrase that will outlive him.

Obama’s speaking style is dysfluent, pedantic, and stiff. You can easily see this yourself by listening to his pauses. I’m not talking about using a pause for emphasis, but rather those pauses that occur because the speaker is editing herself in midspeech. The pause occurs because the speaker wants to substitute a new word or has lost her train of thought or wants to pursue a new line of thought. The pause sounds awkward, not dramatic. Obama’s speech (even when apparently working from a script) is riddled with these editing pauses. These pauses indicate inexperience, confusion, and weakness. Please listen to speeches from that prior list of greats. They all delivered “great words” with great fluency. Great actors can do this and so can great believers. When your heart and mind are both united, your speech will be passionate, thoughtful, and fluent because you don’t need to edit.

Obama also aspires to a great style, but he clearly needs more rehearsal at it. He comes across to me as a talented speaker who simply needs more experience at the task in a lot of different situations. Right now he sounds to me like someone who’s been giving pretty much the same speech under favorable conditions and as a result does not have much range. He’s like a good high school student who’s participated in several speech tournaments doing the same speech and now he’s trying something new.

Here’s the secret for great political speaking: poetry. You need to have both the vision and the expression of a poet. The great ones either have this skill within them or else they can see the importance of the skill and can recognize it and produce it when someone gives it to them.

For example, it is well established that John Kennedy did not write most of his “great words.” He probably had the vision part, but lacked the ability to express it poetically. He had great writers to do this. And he also was smart enough to recognize another’s poetry and then deliver it as his own. He didn’t rewrite “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” He immediately got the poetry of that line and delivered it in his own voice.

By contrast, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote virtually everything he said. He was both a poet of vision and expression. This is also true of Winston Churchill. For most of the rest, it is a combination of their own effort united with skilled collaborators.

I suspect that Obama does most of his own writing and you can clearly read and hear that he lacks poetry on his own. He does not seem to have a clear, strong, unique vision and his poetical expression is more pedantic than pretty or persuasive. He does appear to have strong potential: He’s smart as hell, has a good voice with excellent range and control, and he’s relaxed in his body. He’s got the basic performance skills.

What he lacks is more and more varied speaking experience and that poetry skill. Right now he needs to find a better writer he trusts and he needs to develop 3 or 4 standard speeches. He thinks he’s better than he is and that makes him vulnerable to warhorses like Hillary Clinton or John McCain. He’s headed for one of those Dan Quayle “you’re no Jack Kennedy” moments.

Now, of course, recall that I divined Rudy G. as the Republican nominee, so, Mr. Obama, if you’re reading this, don’t panic just yet. But, you do need better writers. Go for the poetry, not the rhetoric.

In my neverending quest to improve the persuasion IQ of the world, I scour the Internet looking for examples of accurate and inaccurate presentations of theory and research. Today my search turned up an inaccurate example concerning New Year’s Eve Resolutions.

The BBC ran this story about using self persuasion to help their readers with those perennial plans to lose 10 pounds, exercise more, stop lingering by adult book stores and so on . . . (that was a joke). What’s nice about the story is that they actually mention an outstanding example of persuasion theory and research, the work of Robert Cialdini and the six cues of influence.

As the story states,

Scientists have been studying the influence process for over half a century and have found six principles that not only help organisations to get us to say “yes” to their requests, but could also help us to achieve the goals we set ourselves.

So far, so good. Except for one thing. There is no way that these persuasion and influence cues would produce significant, lasting behavior change. As Cialdini and other persuasion researchers have noted, these kind of persuasion tactics are aimed at people who are “low WATT” thinkers, with limited Willingness and Ability To Think (Cialdini calls this “click,whir” in his great book, “Influence.”) Cues are useful to such people precisely because they require limited cognitive processing. Thus, we typically find that likable people are more persuasive when receivers really aren’t thinking closely about the topic or issue. When the persuasive situation is really important to us and we are giving it our full attention, sure, it’s nice that the source is friendly or attractive, but, to quote an old Wendy’s commercial, “Where’s the beef?”

Applying persuasion cues as they are properly described in the BBC report would be highly ineffective self persuasion tactics regarding New Year’s Eve Resolutions precisely because those Resolution typically involve significant, serious, and negative behaviors. With these “high WATT” processors, the last thing you want to do is hit them with a cue, but rather with strong arguments, compelling information about the central merits of the behavior in question. A very different animal.

Quick summary. Kudos, to the Beeb for getting the theory right. Raspberries, for getting the application wrong.

As I’ve noted much earlier, based on my forceful, relentless, and unique method of analysis, I’m predicting that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani will win the nominations of their respective parties and that Senator Clinton will win the general election. Until everyone in the race wakes up to this unavoidable persuasion truth, we continue the charade that these primaries actually matter. Sigh. Onward.

Currently, Clinton hammers away at her nearest competition, Barack Obama, and based on results in Nevada and New Hampshire, the attacks are working. The interesting persuasion question here is: What is Senator Obama’s method of defense? Here’s a quote from the New York Times that seems to be (from my general reading of many sources) the basic tactic.

Mr. Obama, asked in a brief interview whether his rivals had distracted him from making a positive case to voters, snapped: “Why would that rattle me? My suspicion is the other side must be rattled if they’re continually saying false things about us.”

The key phrase here is “saying false things.” Obama seems to think that when the Other Side makes arguments against you, the best persuasion response is to relabel those arguments as “false.” This has been a consistent line with Mr. Obama since Mrs. Clinton began to argumentatively dispute Obama’s issues and positions. When the Other Side makes a negative claim about me, respond by saying the negative claim is false.

As a persuasion expert extraordinaire, I must admit to being perplexed at this tactic. I’ve noted in the past with great embarassment, I did not attend Harvard or Law School, and maybe in my 30 year career as a persuasion maven, I missed the line of research that supports the “it’s false” line of defense against attacks. Nothing in my vast, deep, and complex reservoir of persuasion wisdom suggests, nay, whispers that when the Other Side is raising negative arguments about you that the best persuasion tactic is to, in essence, throw a yellow flag, and call the play, “false.” My sports metaphor is most apt in this instance as Mr. Obama seems to think that in politics there is an official referee and that he can play that role, too. Hey, that claim is out of bounds, 15 yard personal foul, play on.

Generally speaking the evidence strongly indicates that politics is like a knife fight - you know you are going to get cut, so just expect it and deal with it. The most common response is, therefore, cut back in response. (The theatrical sigh of unsophisticated observors about “going negative” is the mark of someone who’s never been in knife fight.)

The newest tactic is inoculation and you can read all about it. Basically, you use inoculation in advance of the knife fight and the anticipated cuts you’re going to receive. The tactic aims at reducing the damage or deflecting the attack. Perhaps the greatest example of inoculation comes from none other than former President Bill Clinton in 1992 and his infamous “woman problem,” then with Gennifer Flowers (how about that for a flashback?). Ms. Flowers let it be known privately that she was about to go public with allegations of an adulterous relationship with Candidate Bill Clinton early in the 1992 primaries. The Clinton campaign used this private knowledge to make a hasty appearance on the TV show, “60 Minutes,” literally the night before Ms. Flowers called her press conference. We know how it all worked out. Inoculation works.

Yet, Senator Obama appears to have superior persuasion knowledge and the “it’s false” defense. I wonder if he picked it up while watching “Cops” on TV. Doesn’t it seem that most of the suspects try to use the “it’s false” defense?

Past the bad kidding here, this looks like the response of an unexperienced, untrained, and unschooled persuader. Mr. Obama has been noted as a compelling speaker, but he clearly lacks basic persuasion skill. He orates effectively, but he can’t take a punch very well. Stated another, old fashioned way (with a tip of the hat to Aristotle) Senator Obama is good at ceremonial speaking, but not at political speaking.

I’m probably more than a little biased here because of my predictions, so take this with a grain of salt and a little patience.  If Mr. Obama doesn’t come up with some besides “Hillary is lying about me and so is her husband” then he should be giving a speech something like Fred Thompson did today.  And if Obama defies persuasion gravity (and my expert prognostication) and wins, well then, maybe I’m applying to Harvard.  Go Crimson!  Rah! Rah! Rah!

Today the good people at Center for Science in the Public Interest offer us Chinese Food (Part Deux). If you pay close attention to news or else live in the food wars of postmodern nutrition, you’ll recall Part Une from 1993 when CSPI captured headlines with its first expose on Chinese food. If you missed that headline: FAT!!! The CSPI message caused quite a stir back then in 1993 when we were still naïve about the dangers of food and thought that eating was a risk-free activity. Now, thanks to the good folks at CSPI and their brothers and sisters, we know that food is bad for you in virtually all forms and that if you eat, you will surely die. Unless you subscribe to the Nutrition Action Newsletter (now only $10 a year) in which case you will still surely die, just more slowly.

Part Deux rediscovers what CSPI discovered with Part Une in 1993: FAT!!! However, like the good persuasion agents they aspire to be, they know you can’t simply say the same thing over and over again, so they pushed their crime scene investigation tactics harder to discover: SALT!!! And, what’s even trickier about those Chinese food folks is that they hide that FAT and SALT in the VEGETABLES, thus hitting the Trifecta of Perfect Sin in postmodern nutrition. Vegans around the world are reeling. FAT and SALT in their beloved Chinese VEGETABLES?!? Add a zest of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, bake in the oven of Global Warming, and you’ve got the Perfect Storm. Why do you even get out of bed?

CSPI ain’t what it used to be and it’s curious to ask why. When they first made the scene in the early 1990s, they could dominate the mediascape like the Rolling Stones, Apple Computer, or Nike. And this was way back in the day before cell phones, Internet, and cable TV. Right? Just 3 TV channels and the elite print media that you could count on fingers. Today any fool can capture somebody’s attention through YouTube, but 15 years ago you had to be Mick Jagger to jump on the top of the heap. And CSPI did it with its fabulous PR tricks on restaurant food. And movie theater popcorn. And Italian food – remember the heart attack on a plate, fettucini Alfredo? Boy, those were the days. And, weren’t those guys at CSPI all that? And now . . . nothing but second acts and all the postmodern hipsters still quote Fitzgerald from the 1920s on that: There are no second acts in American life.

What happened?

First, realize that we are talking persuasion here. Yeah, there’s all that eat and you will surely die scripture, but the text is meaningless without persuasion because if you declare truth in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it . . . the spotted owls will not nest. Stated more directly and sincerely – CSPI cannot do good without persuasion despite its good intentions, good science, and good donors.

Second, realize that we are talking about a group that once could dominate the media agenda in a most charming fashion. CSPI invented postmodern nutrition advocacy. In the 1990s you couldn’t swing a handful of overcooked pasta without hitting a CSPI warning piped directly through the mainstream media and now they are just another fish swimming in the sea. If CSPI really is a center for science and if science is irrresistible, then food science is a killer persuasion app. Just do some flashy PR to generate Reception in the Standard Model, and the rest is the science of falling off a log as persuasion gravity pulls everyone to the ground once the CSPI PR has gotten you on the top of the ladder. Without them, we’re all pining away for the day of their mentor, Ralph Nader, and unsafe at any speed headlines and spotlights, although after that little incident in 2000 maybe it’s best to leave Mr. Nader out of the picture.

Third, realize that the science of nutrition in no way supports or even needs the PR politics of postmodern nutrition. The Western World has known since Genesis that if you eat, you will surely die, and, as a Big Message, science really doesn’t have much to add to that except technical terminology, bar charts, and an insatiable demand for public funding. Seriously, name the new, Holy Cow! I Had No Idea, contributions of nutrition research beyond the standard Leave It To Beaver advice from mom about eating? Stated another way, if postmodern nutrition did not exist, how would the world be worse?

All together then, realize that groups like CSPI are exemplars par excellence of applied persuasion and can be understood, analyzed, and evaluated from that light. Let us begin.

Let’s start with a weaker argument: Consider the title of their Part Deux effort on Chinese food: “Wok Carefully.”

How clever. When doing research on Chinese food, let’s mock Chinese pronunciation of English words with an ironic title. Why don’t they work in images of bound feet, top knots, and opium dens? CSPI has always tried to lead the PC curve and here they are defaming a nationality, a racial and ethnic group, and an ancient tradition of cooking. Can you imagine the PR folks at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association coming out with something like, “Wok Carefully?” Okay, since CSPI has good PC credentials, this one will slide under the radar, but it is still bad persuasion to mock nationalities and peoples and even if no one in the chattering classes (except, gulp, me) is pointing this out, believe me, it is still having a negative psychological effect. And worse still, it is a bomb waiting to explode. Think about some anti-CSPI zealot showing up at an event with someone dressed like a Hollywood stereotyped coolie carrying a sign, “Wok Carefully.”

Now, consider a stronger argument: The political environment of the early 1990s. CSPI scored its greatest successes with a Democratic Congress and White House. Please keep your shirt on and think about this. As one of the Rules state, “Great persuaders don’t need rich uncles, kindness from strangers, or third party vote splitters.” CSPI was supposed to be a great persuader in part because they had both science and great skill. If you’ve got these qualities it doesn’t matter who’s President or who controls Congress. You’ve got the Truth, baby, and the Moves to present it. And in 1993, CSPI looked like it had the Truth and the Moves. Except, that as the political winds changed, so did the impact of CSPI. This is not possible if you are a Great Persuader especially when armed with the Truth of postmodern nutrition science.

Finally, consider the “science” in all of this. No one argues about the science of gravity and its implications when standing on the top of a tall, rickety ladder. If you doubt gravity, please jump at your pleasure to prove your pudding. Right now, a lot of people are claiming they understand “gravity” (e.g. nutrition science, human-caused global climate change, diets that save everyone’s life, and we can’t forget: HRT for menopausal women), but when they jump off the ladder no one falls, because there is no gravity and there is no science . . . just advocacy and sincere persuasion efforts.

I’ll leave you with a homework lesson. You’ll need to collect data on this and analyze it. There’ll be a lotta math and maybe some science, too.

The hypothesis you’ll test: CSPI helped create the obesity epidemic in America.

Look at the population statistics on American weight status. Before CSPI hit the big time in the early 1990s Americans were maintaining a largely healthy weight status (typically measured with BMI which you can read all about). After CSPI finds the media spotlight and vaults into Congressional hearings and markups, then American waistlines expand dramatically. Think about that. Before CSPI’s media magic, BMIs are good. After CSPI, America gets real fat. I’m hypothesizing perhaps for the First Time in Modern History that an advocacy organization made things worse for its advocacy and that life would have been better (leaner and gentler) without the advocacy. Advocacy that both invents problems and offers failed solutions to problems that would have never occurred without the advocacy! Sounds like AARP, doesn’t it?

If you eat, you will surely die.

I’ve coined up a phrase, “persuasion engines,” to describe a systematic approach to applying persuasion. A persuasion engine is the motor of change that drives behavior. It has moving parts, requires energy, and when placed in a chassis, it can move things. If you know what you are doing, you can create an assembly line that mass produces persuasion engines or you can custom build these motors for specific applications. Thus, you can build a Ford or a Ferrari.

Do you catch the metaphor?

A simplified version of a persuasion engine is a persuasion script. A persuasion script means very much what the term, “script,” says. A script is a sequence of dialog and action that plays out in a standardized, routine way. If you’ve ever had a fast food job at the counter, you know about scripts. If you’ve done telephone sales, you know about scripts. If you have contact with clients that is stereotyped, predictable, and stable, then you can profitably use scripts.

Many people hate scripts, find them insulting and demeaning, and believe that scripts are not nearly as effective as the performance a person left alone and to their own devices could deliver. If you are in the category of a script hater, you need to do more reading and thinking about it. Most people are lousy in scripty situations precisely because those situations are so routine, predictable, and stereotyped. You get bored out of your gourd always doing the same damn thing, so you start to wing it or worse still, just get through it. And, sad to say, most people are not nearly as good at persuasion and communication as they think they are and if you put them in a script, you get a much better average performance. Big business is into scripts in a big way precisely because the whole point of big business is to create a fundamental routine that everyone can do profitably. All this “I gotta be me” is nice if you’re an entertainer or a rebellious youth, but it don’t make the dime day in and day out.

Let me put it another way. If you want to excel, find all of the tasks in your work life that are routine, then build good scripts, and DO THEM EVERY TIME. Save your Special Sauce for places where it is really needed.

So, here’s a standard script for routine contact with customers or clients (i.e. people with whom you do business who are not family, friends, or colleagues). Let’s first look at the functions.

An introduction.
A welcome.
An orientation.
A persuasion setup.
A service offer.
A persuasion tactic.
A transition.

An introduction provides the basic, “name, rank, and serial number” of the persuasion agent. A smile should accompany this information.

A welcome details the source. This is the name of the company, your logo, and your mission.

An orientation gives the receiver a map of “where you are standing” so the receiver understands the situation from the source’s point of view of course. This is the products or services available here.

A persuasion setup lays the groundwork for a quickly following persuasion tactic. It may be a question posed by the source to get the receiver thinking along a certain line. It may be information provided that gives something of value to the receiver without this actually costing the source anything (like those “free” appetizers you get at fancy restaurants before they give you the menu). It may be a whiz bang tactic right out of the Primer. Your choice and you can vary it from day to day.

A service offer is the source’s primary reason for the contact. It is the McGuffin, the main point, the raison d’etre for the source to talk to the receiver. It tells the receiver that the source can do something and that the receiver can act on it now.

A persuasion tactic is a deliberately source move to change the receiver here and now. The receiver came in for one thing, but now the source is trying to move them to another thing. The tactic should not interfere with anything related to the actions from the service offer at the prior step. You must deliver the service the receiver expected or you will not get another contact with them. Don’t goof this up with a clever persuasion move.

A transition moves the receiver from this source to another source. You’ve made a good impression on the receiver, you delivered the service, and you executed the persuasion tactic. Now, send the receiver to the next organization source who will repeat the script, but will provide a new service and perhaps a new persuasion tactic.

Let’s work an example.

An introduction.
A welcome.
An orientation.
A persuasion setup.
A service offer.
A persuasion tactic.
A transition.

Hi, how are you doing today? My name is Steve and I’m the receptionist.

The Mountaineer Health Clinic wants to be there for you and provide the best care at the best price in our state.

I’ll get your name and appointment information and make sure you get to the people you need to see.

By the way, I hope you like our new waiting area. We asked our clients what we could do to improve it and they suggested we make more space for children and also make the room a little brighter looking. We recently remodeled it and we hope that you find it more comfortable.

May I take your name and the name of the physician you’re here to see today . . . okay, do you have any questions about the appointment or insurance or anything else I might be able to help you with?

Please take a seat anywhere. You might like to look at our information kiosk in the new waiting room. It has a lot of helpful free information.

A nurse will come into the waiting room and call your name when they are ready for you. The nurse’s name is Mary.

How about in a tire store.

Hi, how are you doing today? My name is Steve and I’m a sales agent.

The Mountaineer Tire Store puts tires where you go and aims to make your driving safe.

If you can tell me your driving requirements, either I can help you right away or get the expert you need to see.

By the way, I hope you noticed our new garage. We’ve expanded the number of bays and hired three more experienced mechanics.

What kind of vehicle do your drive and what kind of driving do you do?

I’ve got three options for you. I’ll show those to you, but you also might want to think about doing a tire balance and rotation, too. With our expanded garage we can get this done faster so you don’t have to wait as long.

I’m gonna send you to Bob on this one. He knows more about SUV tires than anyone else and he can give you the rundown on the best options.

If you get my drift with this, I have three questions for you. How can you afford to NOT use scripts? How can there possibly be any serious cost, barrier, or risk with a well designed, properly executed script? Do you really think that the spontaneous, off-the-cuff, just-wing-it performance of all of your people will beat a good script day in and day out?

This is an absolute no-brainer.

When you have routine, stereotyped, and predictable contacts with clients you’ve simply got to design, train, and implement scripts. Let’s go TpB on this: Scripts are easy, fun, and popular.

Easy? Come on. You’ve got the basic outline for a generic script right here. If you’re still surviving in your business you’re smart enough to customize them to your own situation. Hey, you do your taxes every year and you’re not in jail yet. You can easily do this, too.

Fun? Of course, it’s fun. Think about plotting and planning and scheming with your crew to develop these things and use them. It will be a good laugh doing this because everyone sees the advantage, it’s easy to implement and no one’s job is going to get downsized. Building and doing scripts gets everyone involved.

Popular? You don’t think your competition’s doing this? Hey, look around. Join the 21st century. Lots of people are doing this. They’re called winners.

Persuasion scripts are the way to go. Look, they focus your people on the main point of the work and their jobs. It gets everyone in the same boat and pulling in the same direction. Scripts provide great work markers (if you’re in the script, keep doing it, if you’re not in the script, wake up). They give you a flexible structure for delivering a consistent message. You can vary the persuasion games by day or week. You can train your people to work cooperatively in a Team Persuasion approach, so that you’ve got interlocking scripts. Then people can train in each script and move dynamically from part to part with the work flow. In other words, one person doesn’t always have to be the Receptionist or the SUV expert, but rather everyone can rotate through these roles.

Is this not cool beans, the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, and kisses sweeter than wine?

Why am I giving this away for free? Why don’t I at least put it in a book or a seminar and charge you for the information that way? Why don’t I have some kind of tease that requires you to pay me a consulting fee to fill in the blanks?

Here’s my angle. Even if you get this idea, it will probably be hard to get it going in your organization because your organization doesn’t think and operate like this. If you want to make something like persuasion scripts or Team Persuasion function, you’re going to have to Do Something Different. That means making a clear, obvious, and concrete commitment to change. Showing up on Monday with a printout of this page and a little enthusiasm is not sufficient commitment. You need to hire a consultant like me, somebody from Mitch and Murray, to show your organization you’re serious.